Stealing Asia

by David Clarkson

  They both had to lower their weapons to start the machines and that is when I made my move. Picking up a loose piece of firewood, I sprinted toward the pair and hit the first of them with the wood, knocking him out cold. The other had time to raise his weapon, but not to get off a shot. I batted the firearm from his hand before catching him squarely on the chin with my follow up swing.

  The gunmen were both out cold, but I had to be sure that they could not follow. I put a bullet into each one’s thighs. That would be enough to incapacitate them should they wake sooner than expected. I then climbed onto one of the quads and applied maximum acceleration as I skidded onto the dirty and uneven trail leading back into the jungle. So long as I kept to a westerly bearing, I knew that I would soon find another settlement or resort to use as a base to plan my strategy. I did not look back.

  Chapter 2

  The U.S. has the most elaborate network of spies and covert agencies in the world, yet it still finds room to outsource to private contractors like myself. This was not the first time I had worked for the Americans; usually I prefer to deal directly with the military as they insist on a certain amount of separation, which suits me fine. It gives them deniability and I have the luxury of avoiding the pencil pushers. The politicians on the other hand, are never easy to work for. If a job goes to plan, they want anything but anonymity.

  Take the job I did before this one. Some senator is coming up for re-election and he needs to stir up publicity to remind the voters of who he is. Years of broken promises and failures can easily be forgotten if the last headline before the election is a positive one. Narcotic trafficking was a hot topic for political debate and it was thought that getting that one policy right could be enough to clinch the vote. That is where I came in. I was hired to infiltrate a major drugs cartel directly at the source.

  Columbia is a long way from my birthplace in Argentina, but to these rich people, we dagos are all the same. They sent me in with too little preparation and not enough back-up. Suffice to say, the mission was a disaster from the start. All that was ultimately achieved was the arrest of a dozen low level cartel members, most of them nothing more than slaves, and the seizing of a few hundred kilos of cocaine. The street value of the haul was a lot less than the expenditure on the operation. It would have been more cost effective to have simply bought up all of the drugs to keep it off of the streets that way.

  Of course, the politicians had a very different take on the outcome. Even though the resulting story had barely been newsworthy, the senator decided to waste even more tax payer money on a lavish dinner to celebrate, and hopefully for him; to boost his dwindling campaign funds. I was invited along as an ego boost. By insisting that I rub shoulders with the rich and the privileged it made them feel a little closer to the action. In reality, the only thing they dirtied their fingers with was the hors d’oeuvres.

  I was paraded before them like a piece of art. All the while, I knew that to them, I was only slightly above the criminals they hired me to bring to justice. At the first opportunity, I made my excuses to leave. I was tired and this was not my idea of relaxation. What I needed above all else was a vacation.

  ‘Excuse me, señor,’ said a voice, as I waited to collect my coat.

  It was one of the low level aides. I had noticed him hovering around the senator for much of the evening and I figured his role to be strictly domestic rather than political. I met his gaze, but did not reply.

  ‘May one have a word in private?’ he asked.

  ‘Actually, I was just leaving,’ I told him.

  ‘It will only take a minute and I promise that it will be worth your while,’ he replied.

  I followed him into an empty room at the far end of the main hallway. Although it was far away from where the party was taking place, I knew exactly where I was. It was the only part of the house not fitted with security cameras. An imposing mahogany desk sat at the foot of a ceiling high portrait of the senator’s late wife. She was a beautiful lady and from an extremely wealthy family. It was well known that she was the one who had funded his rise to political power. I could only wonder what lies and trickery he must have used to snare a woman like that.

  ‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’ said the man, who had led me into the room.

  ‘Is that why you brought me in here,’ I asked, ‘to admire a painting?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ he replied. ‘I brought you in here in order to discuss a most delicate matter that is of utmost importance to the senator.’

  ‘Why can the senator not tell me himself instead of getting a lackey to do his dirty business?’ I asked.

  ‘I assure you, señor, that I am no lackey.’

  I waited for him to substantiate his claim. It was obvious that my silence vexed him, but since he had been the one to initiate our meeting, I saw no reason to make an effort.

  ‘I am the senator’s personal secretary and I am in charge of the running of this household,’ he said.

  I had already seen the senator’s “personal” secretary and she was a lot prettier than this guy. I guessed a more apt job title would be house butler. He was the only person at the party to be looked down upon more than I.

  ‘Okay, I get it,’ I said. ‘Whatever the job is, it is off the record and will not be traced back to his eminence.’

  He was unmoved by my sarcasm.

  ‘There is no need to take that tone, but you are perfectly correct in your assumption. The task I have for you is of personal importance to my master and he thinks that you are the best man to handle it.’

  He removed an envelope from inside his jacket and handed it to me. It contained a photograph of a girl. She was beautiful, in her late teens or early twenties. I did not need to ask who she was. She had inherited her looks from her mother.

  ‘This is the senator’s daughter,’ I said. ‘If she is in some kind of trouble, you have come to the wrong man. I don’t deal with domestic problems.’

  ‘Miss Katherine is perfectly safe,’ he replied. ‘She is currently enjoying a break from her studies and taking time out to travel the world.’

  Although the senator had never once mentioned his only child, young Katherine Cole was certainly talked about at the party. Expelled from her third college in two years, it was rumoured that she had been blacklisted by many of the top academic institutions in the country. My initial thought was that she had runaway and I would be asked to bring her in. As far as I was concerned, she was free to run to wherever she wanted. This kind of job amounted to nothing more than abduction and I would have no part in it.

  ‘I think you have made a mistake,’ I said.

  ‘There is no mistake. Miss Katherine has chosen to do her travelling alone and the senator is concerned for her safety,’ said the butler. ‘All he asks is that you keep an eye on her. Just to make sure that she does not get herself into any trouble. I can assure you that you will be compensated handsomely for your time.’

  So that was what he wanted of me; to stop daddy’s girl from causing any further embarrassment. If Katherine got into any trouble abroad, the effect on the upcoming election would be cataclysmic. Given her track record, keeping her out of trouble would not be straightforward. When the senator had gone to college he had studied alongside future leaders of commerce and industry. He had sent his daughter away to bunk with the offspring of Hollywood A-listers and rock stars. It had not taken long for her to become corrupted.

  ‘What level of surveillance are we talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘You will be free to use whatever methods you think best. Watching and tracking her movements is all that is required. There is to be zero contact unless her life is placed in jeopardy.’

  ‘Jeopardy?’

  If there had been any threats made; I wanted to know about it. There was more than one way that the senator’s daughter could affect the outcome of the election. As well as a potential embarrassment, she was also a prime target for kidnapping.

  ‘You know how it is with a pretty g
irl travelling alone,’ said the butler. ‘Should she receive any unwanted attention; you are to deal with it swiftly.’

  I was certain that I would regret it, but I agreed to take the job. The way I figured it, I still got to take the vacation that I wanted, but with a healthy pay cheque on top. The risk, if any, would be minimal. Flights and a visa had already been arranged in my name and just three hours after leaving the senator’s mansion, I boarded a flight bound for Malaysia. I had no leads other than where the girl had started her journey, but I did not expect finding her to prove too difficult.

  Since the death of her mother, Katherine Cole’s relationship with her father could at best be described as fractious. There was even a rumour circulating that she was not his real daughter and had been the result of an affair that her mother had had. Many names were bandied about from rival politicians to rock stars. For the most part, the senator managed to keep the stories from reaching the tabloid press, as he knew what a detrimental impact a disputed paternity case would have on his political career. As such, the young traveller did not once call home or even send a postcard.

  It took me just twenty four hours to track her down and I did it through her credit card. I knew that once she made her first withdrawal, a stop would be placed on her account. Malaysia is the credit card fraud capital of the world. Whenever an overseas card is used at a cash point the issuing bank automatically freezes the account. Statistically, such a high proportion of them are stolen that they do not take any chances. Following a small cash bribe, I saw from the bank’s logs that she had called to get the card cleared from a backpacker hostel in the Golden Triangle area of town. I paid a friendly visit to the establishment’s owner, who for the bargain price of three hundred Ringits told me that he had recommended to her a place in Georgetown on the island of Penang. I immediately booked into a hotel on the opposite side of the street.

  ***

  Malaysia is a Muslim country. Whereas, Muslims are effective at keeping the peace and fending off the twin evils of drugs and alcohol, they have never been as successful with economics. This is where the Chinese come in. Every major city in the country has a flourishing Chinatown and there is none bigger than on Penang. Chinese New Year was coming up and this gave me plenty of places to blend in; plenty of crowds.

  Now that I had located my target, I had to ensure I did not lose her. I figured that two tracking devices would be enough; one on the bag and one on the girl. The latter would be the most difficult to plant. I had to figure out what was most precious to her; the one thing that she would never leave behind.

  There were no twenty four hour bars on the island and by three o’clock the whole town was usually sleeping. The hostel was not locked and the reception left unmanned. Luckily for me, the girl was staying in one of the town’s more up market establishments and as such the building was fitted with a fire alarm system. After checking the guestbook to get her room number, I smashed the casing on the alarm trigger before quickly exiting back onto the streets. By the time the residents started to shuffle bleary-eyed onto the street, I had climbed atop an adjacent rooftop, which offered an ideal vantage point to watch the street below.

  The guests began to gather in various stages of undress. Some had made the effort to put on trousers or gowns, but many, including Katherine, had simply wrapped a sheet around themselves. All of the guests were eager to get back to their beds, but the ringing of the alarm was prolonged as the landlord could not locate the key for shutting it off. Of course, it never occurred to him to check the pockets of the guy who was now snooping about his roof. Whilst everybody outside was distracted, I located and unlocked a hatch that led directly onto the corridor of the top floor.

  I soon found Katherine’s room. After picking the lock, I slipped inside and took a brief look around. A few photos from home (nights out with friends and a visit to a rock concert) had been tacked to a wall by the bed, giving the place a more personal feel to it. Her backpack was still largely unpacked and I had no trouble fitting a discreet tracking device into the fabric. Next, I checked the drawer to her bedside cabinet. Her passport and a few other pieces of ID were inside; all amended to show her new name. Rather than change it completely she had kept the surname, which is how I had found her entry in the guest book. Again, that was her mother’s. The senator had adopted it early in his career to align himself with one of the state’s most powerful families and also to mask his own humble origins.

  The only other item in the drawer was a silver chain attached to a locket. She had been wearing it the whole time that I had been watching her, but I had not been certain if it was of any value or merely a souvenir trinket. I flipped it open and saw an image of the same woman who had stood proudly on the canvass behind the senator’s mahogany desk. This was the priceless find I had been hoping for. I carefully attached a second tracking device behind the photograph and then returned everything to how I had found it, before exiting via the roof.

  The alarm had not abated when I got outside and I could see the owner becoming increasingly agitated by the crowd of tired travellers surrounding him from all sides. Rather than allow him to resort to destroying the alarm control box with an axe, I flipped the keys over so that they landed by his feet. These were spotted and picked up by an eagle-eyed backpacker and normality was soon restored to the guesthouse.

  With my tracking devices in place, I was able to take things easy. It was no longer necessary to watch my target all of the time, so I acquired a car and decided to see a bit more of the island. I checked out the beaches to the North and explored some of the city’s colonial past in its Dutch, Portuguese and British influenced architecture. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like a regular citizen; like a tourist. It was a pace of life that I could easily get used to. Each evening I would return to watching the girl as this was when she was at her most vulnerable.

  It became easy to predict her behaviour. She rarely deviated from the same routine and I failed to see that my presence would be required for much longer. I knew it was only a matter of time until I received the order to either let her go or bring her home. Then one night everything changed.

  Occasionally, she would visit local bars, but always left early and alone. I would wait outside in the car and make sure that she got back to her guest house safely. Just as complacency was beginning to creep in on my part, the time finally came when I noticed her being followed from the bar. Judging by the coy expression on her face, I got the impression that she was aware of his presence and had maybe even given him the come-on. He looked nervous and clearly had no idea how to respond to the advances of a young woman so far out of his league. As far as threats went, I had him ranked pretty low. The real danger was lurking a little further down the street.

  The thief appeared to be after the necklace or worse still, the girl herself. He forcefully dragged her into a dark side alley where she continued to struggle against his grip. The nervous guy from the bar was closer than I and he was quick to intervene. He put up a decent fight and was effective at fending off the attacker. The thug was soon thrown out into the street and he should have given up and run away. If the kid from the bar had been a little more experienced, he would have known that they rarely run.

  I have seen many concealed firearms withdrawn in my time and as soon as the mugger reached into the inside of his jacket, I knew what was coming next. I hammered the gas and switched my headlights on full beam, before ramming into him at speed. The chassis of the car buckled under the impact and rather than roll over the roof the thug was caught between the bonnet and the shattered windshield. Once I got to the end of the street, I broke hard in order to jettison my unwelcome passenger, before speeding off to dump the car. I had paid for it in cash so that it could never be traced back to me.

  The accidental hero who had helped the girl (to a point) was with her constantly for the rest of her stay in Georgetown and it was not difficult to guess what they spent most of their time doing. I was grateful that I had op
ted merely to plant tracking bugs and not listening devices.

  After two days, Katherine, or Asia as she was now calling herself, left Malaysia on a flight bound for Koh Samui with a short lay-over in Bangkok. I, of course, had booked onto the very same flights.

  She spent just one night in the Thai capital, but it was a welcome change of scenery for me as much as for her. The relaxed, anything goes, attitude of the Kao San Road provided the perfect backdrop to a surveillance mission. The entire street was one huge love-in and nobody was suspicious of anybody else. Blending in could not have been easier. Touts selling everything from fake passports to press passes mixed freely with purveyors of the more traditional souvenir fare.

  The guesthouse that she chose was little more than a windowless box, but my mission necessitated that I got something a little more upmarket. She may not have needed a view, but I did; especially since I had lost one of my tracking devices. For reasons beyond my understanding she had left the locket behind in Penang. Fitting a replacement would not be difficult, but it was unlikely that I would have the opportunity until we got to the islands. For the time being, I had to regress to the old fashioned method of espionage.

  In a city as alive as Bangkok, nobody wants to stay in their room. Despite the prospect of an early flight, Asia spent the evening visiting a few of the many bars and restaurants that the Kao San had to offer. The city was much more liberal than its Malaysian counterparts and as such she received more male attention than she had before. At times, I felt like the only ferrang not to try it on with her (ferrang being a term that the Thais use to describe foreigners. The meaning is derogatory, but with the mess made of this country by tourists, who can argue against that?). She showed no interest in any of her admirers and I suspected that she was still thinking of her man back in Penang.